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CELEBRATING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF SLICK RICK

A Tribute By Bill Adler

TH 25

THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF SLICK RICK


Lets take a moment to appreciate a great album that was a hit from the moment of its release and which has since taken on the stature of a bona-fide cultural icon: The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, which was released a full 25 years ago, on November 1, 1988

THE BEGINNING OF AN ERA


Slick Rick did not have much of a profile then. He was known, if at all, as MC Ricky D, a member of Doug E. Freshs Get Fresh Crew. Despite Dougs top billing, everyone who loved La-Di-Da-Di and The Show the crews smash single in the summer of 1985 -- understood that Rick was its star. Among his earliest fans were Rick Rubin, the founder of a label called Def Jam, which had begun releasing its first records in 1984, and Lyor Cohen, who ran Rush Artist Management, the firm which managed the careers of the Def Jam artists. It was Lyor who signed Rick to Rush and Def Jam in March of 1986.

GREAT ADVENTURES IN THE BRONX


The kids for whom Rick made Great Adventures, most of them leading lives not so very different from the one being led by the 23-year-old Bronx-based rapper himself, went nuts for it from the jump. Within a few months of its release it had sold northwards of 700,000 copies, well on its way to platinum status.

THIS IS SLICK RICK


Clearly, these young people got Rick right away. They appreciated his wild humor, sexual frankness, and unprecedented storytelling skills not to mention his willingness to express vulnerability in romantic affairs, a trait much more shocking in its nakedness (especially given that it was issuing from a rapper) than the most graphic of Ricks erotic escapades.

More happened in one of Ricks songs than occurred in whole albums by other rappers. Consider Children's Story." Produced by Rick himself in collaboration with his pal Vance Wright, it is arguably Great Adventuress masterpiece. The story of a couple of young stickup kids who fall afoul of the law, the track is framed as a cozy little bedtime tale, as if Dr. Seuss had gone hip-hop. A jagged, descending, one-fingered piano figure in the bass register alternates with a moaning horn line. Together these elements generate tremendous action-movie momentum in a song that never exceeds medium tempo.

CHILDREN'S STORY"

CHILDREN'S STORY"
Rick proceeds to give voice to a broad cast of characters: Uncle Ricky (the Cat In the Hatlike narrator), Uncle Ricky's young niece and nephew, the stickup kids, and in a memorable cameo appearance -- Dave the Dopefiend. Plotwise, there is a robbery and long chase followed by a groundbreaking climax; one of the stick-up kids is shot dead by the cops. At the very end of the track, Uncle Ricky warns his young relatives not to act like the kid who was killed. Straight and narrow or your soul gets cast, he says. This kind of concern for his listeners was one of Ricks trademarks.

THIS IS THE ALBUM


The rest of the album revealed even more range. "Teenage Love" and "Hey Young World" are absolutely un-ironic and touching love songs a la New Edition, as is Mona Lisa, a sweet boy-meets-girlat-a-pizza-shop scenario that nods to Dionne Warwicks Walk On By and to a super-romantic ballad by Nat King Cole that was also called Mona Lisa. "The Moment I Feared" tells three separate bad-luck stories; in the final one our hero is the victim of a jailhouse rape. "The Ruler's Back" (remade by Jay-Z in 2001) takes bragging about one's rap skills into a fantasyland of royal tribute.

FASHION KING
Very quickly, Rick became beloved not only for his lyrical flow and sense of humor, but for his fashion style, which reflected his roots in England and Jamaica. From his Kangols to his eyepatch to his gold-and-diamond fronts, and from the truck jewelry around his neck and the rings on his fingers to the Ballys on his feet, Slick Rick looked like no one before him. Tall and slim, he was a fly brown brother from head to toe, even if he did say so himself. Today it's clear that Rick was one of the founding fathers of bling.

Over the years, the renown of Great Adventures has only continued to grow. Go visit whosampled.com when you get the chance and see for yourself. The website notes that the albums songs have been sampled nearly 900 times and covered 16 times. Childrens Story, of course, was famously sampled by Montell Jordan for This is How We Do It, a monster hit in 1995. But it has also been sampled by Eminem, A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie Smalls, Mos Def, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, Lauren Hill, Ghost Face, Method Man, Aesop Rock, UGK, Lupe Fiasco, Boogie Down Productions, Rakim, Shyne, and Capleton, among many others. Hey, Young World has been sampled by everyone from Redman to Scarface to Fat Joe to Queen Latifah. But it was also covered by Macy Gray (featuring a new guest verse by its author) in 2001 and remade by Nas in 2010. Alicia Keys built her Teenage Love Affair (2008) on top of Ricks Teenage Love.

SAMPLED & COVERED

Even more astonishing, perhaps, is how many hundreds of times Rick has been shouted out in the songs of other recording artists over the years. In this case, Id suggest a visit to the scholarly environs of RapGenius.com, but the highlights include M.I.A. on Bring the Noise (Cause Im a mom it dont make me thick/Im a overweight, heavyweight, female Slick Rick), Kanye West on Keri Hilsons Knock You Down (Hey, young world, Im the new Slick Rick) and Amy Winehouse on Me and Mr. Jones (Made me miss the Slick Rick gig/And thought I didnt love you when I did). And this is to say nothing of the tributes to The Ruler by rappers in other languages, including French, Spanish, Dutch, and Polish. Heres Lt. Dan Frost, a German rapper, in a song called Infiltration -- Du rappst und kennst nicht mal Slick Rick/Ich hab da was fur dich hip hop knowledge, genickwick. In plain English: "You say you rap but you don't know Slick Rick? I've got some hip hop knowledge for you, son!"

SAMPLED & COVERED

But Lt. Frosts regard for Rick is no higher than Rakims. In Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, Ice-Ts documentary feature film from 2012, Ra says, When Slick told a story, you was right there. If he was talking about running through the park, you smelled the grass. Jay-Z is also an admirer. In Decoded (2011), Jay lays out just how Ricks work influenced his own development as an artist and a human being: Slick Rick taught me that not only can rap be emotionally expressive, it can even express those feelings that you cant really name which was important for me, and for a lots of kids like me, who couldnt always find the language to make sense of our feelings. Many of those kids happen to have been young women, including Beyonce, Lauryn Hill, and Missy Elliott, all of whom have sampled Ricks recordings, and Miley Cyrus, who quotes Rick in a song released just this year.

THE ART OF RAP

It really is amazing.

Play The Great Adventures today, 25 years later, and see if it doesnt sound as fresh as the day it was born.

SHOWS & CONTACT INFORMATION


UPCOMING SHOW DATES
Nov 1st, 2013 - Chicago, IL - The Shrine Nov 7th, 2013 - Las Vegas, NV - The 2013 Soul Train Music Awards Nov 9th, 2013 - Orangeburg, SC - South Carolina State University Homecoming Nov 30th, 2013 - Milwaukee, WI - Potawatoni Bingo Casino Dec 14th, 2013 - Stanhope, NJ - Stanhope House Jan 17th, 2014 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl Feb 8th, 2014 - Savannah, GA - Savannah Civic Center

CONTACT INFORMATION
Management Mandy Aragones Slick Rick Music 718.515.5817 office 917.922.9122 mobile Email: Slickrickent@aol.com Marketing Jasmine "Jazz" Young The Endeavour Agency 201.403.8433 mobile Email: jazz@theendeavouragency.com

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